The Great Beyond

Chapter 71: Mi Amore Wing (Hiccup)

 The shouts from the twins completely overtook any peace the afternoon could bring—not that I'd really expected it in the first place. Everyone had spent the morning gathering up all the scrap metal on the Edge, and now came the time to pile it all together. Barf and Belch were having some difficulty agreeing on where exactly to drop the stuff, hovering in the air for a long while.

"So, does everything have to be a game with them, or...?" I trailed off.

"They share a pea brain, Hiccup," Snotlout snickered, "and peas are really small to start with."

The twins perfectly timed their drop of the scrap metal, nearly crushing Snotlout as revenge for insulting them—something made clear when they high-fived each other.

"Okay, look, come on down you two," I ordered. "We have to decide what to do with all this scrap metal."

"Throw it in the water with those Nuts," Snotlout scoffed as he pushed himself up to his feet again.

"And pollute the ocean?" Fishlegs barked. "Unh-unh. Not on my watch."

Even though I desperately wanted to be rid of all this scrap metal, I had to agree with Fishlegs—throwing the scrap into the ocean was not an option.

"If only there was a way, some—some way that this metal, this very metal here, could benefit all of dragon-kind," Tuff lamented dramatically.

"Yeah, like if there was a dragon that could somehow reuse all this junk."

Reign, Fishlegs, and I all glanced at each other, identical smiles crossing our faces as the same thought dawned on all of us. We all exclaimed that it was the Armor Wing, much to Snotlout's chagrin and disdain. It wasn't a big secret that he hated that dragon, considering it had stolen his family's betrothal axe, but he would get the best use out of the spare metal.

"This great deed shall be known forevermore as... re... doing the thing." Tuffnut's point fell so unbelievably flat.

"Yeah. We'll figure it out, bro," Ruff laughed awkwardly.

"Re-figure it out, bro."

All of us turned around at the sound of a dragon squawking and landing. I'd expected it to maybe be someone from Berk, but instead, Dagur and Mala landed together on Sleuther. Reign and I glanced at each other in confusion, not expecting either of them. Reign had gone to stay at Berserker Island for a couple weeks and had returned last night because her brother sent her a Terror Mail saying that he would be returning in the morning and that the Berserkers could handle themselves for a few hours without a leader, and although she'd been wary, she came back anyways. Had Dagur even gone back to the island?

The arrow sticking out of his shoulder told me he likely hadn't.

The moment his feet were on the ground, Dagur ran straight for his sister, grabbing onto her shoulders and catching her completely off-guard.

"Reign!" he cried excitedly.

"Dagur." She smiled at the pair in front of her nervously. "Mala. A-Arrow? Dagur, you should really deal with that."

"Are you guys okay?" I asked, approaching Reign's side as Dagur let go of her.

"Never better! Why do you ask?"

"You have an arrow sticking out of your—" He remained trapped in his enthusiastic delirium, so I decided to let it go so we could figure out what was going on.